Is Poll-Leading Hillary the Ghost Candidate?

Hillary Clinton is all but measuring the drapes for the Oval Office, but some things in this campaign don’t add up:

Trump supporter Wayne Allen Root paints Hillary Clinton as the political equivalent of the “ghost cities” of China that no one lives in:

This reminds me of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. She exists, but are there any real people behind her? Are you certain anyone is voting for her?

While Trump rallies are “once-in-a-lifetime experiences … like Woodstock for working-class conservatives,” Hillary is lucky to draw 200 people.

No one buys Hillary’s books or campaign gear, either. Root tells of a friend who found only Hillary gear at the airport gift shop and, on inquiring, was told that the Trump hats and shirts that come in twice a week are sold out “within hours.”

Hillary’s gear? They can’t give it away.

… This doesn’t appear odd to you? Hillary is leading in the polls, but no one attends her rallies, no one buys her books and no one buys her merchandise[.] … She is a candidate whose own supporters don’t like her.

… Hillary is the “Ghost Candidate.”

V.P. candidate Tim Kaine is equally uninspiring, drawing just fifty people to a rally last Friday in Miami. Mr. Kaine spoke from the back of a pickup truck with a street-art poster for a back drop, and the estimate of fifty attendees appears to include organizers, a few photographers, and at least two children well under voting age.

Yet Mr. Kaine may be one dizzy spell from the Oval Office.

Ed Klein, author of several books on the Obamas and the Clintons, has a column out on Mrs. Clinton’s maladies.

Mr. Klein reveals that President Obama and his senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett, “have been so worried about Hillary’s health that they recently offered to arrange a secret medical checkup for her.” Mrs. Clinton refused the offer, fearing that “a leak to the media would prove fatal to her presidential campaign.”

According to Mr. Klein:

[H]er doctors have discovered she suffers from arrhythmia (an abnormal heart beat) and a leaking heart valve. They have recommended that she consider having valve replacement surgery, but Hillary has refused because she does not want to risk the negative political fallout from stories about such a serious operation.

… Hillary suffers from chronic low blood pressure, insufficient blood flow, a tendency to form life-threatening blood clots, and troubling side effects from her medications.

Not to mention a predilection for deception. Klein continues:

Among Hillary’s friends, it is common knowledge that she suffers from tension headaches, sits with her feet elevated, nods off to sleep while studying her speeches, gets dizzy and has frequently stumbled and fallen at her home in Chappaqua. She asks her closest aide, Huma Abedin, to rub her shoulders and bring her cold compresses for her neck and forehead.

So to recap, Hillary is leading in the polls but doesn’t draw crowds, can’t give away her merchandise, and is not liked by her own supporters. Her running mate is equally uninspiring and acted like an irritating jerk in his one moment under the lights. Mrs. Clinton is in failing health and is unlikely to be able to withstand the rigors of the presidency.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Meanwhile, New York Times reporter Stephen Hiltner filed this report on a recent cross-country trip:

Over the course of eight days, while traveling some 3,000 miles by motorcycle across the northern United States, I was steadily confronted by presidential yard signs.

I idly recorded those in support of Donald J. Trump until, after the first few days, the number approached 100. I eventually lost count.

Those in support of Hillary Clinton were comparatively easy to keep track of: I traveled nearly 2,500 miles before I saw a single one.

While Mr. Hiltner’s route took him through states that lean Republican, he says of Trump:

Still, the route alone would not fully explain his utter dominance of the pastures, lawns and embankments that formed the margins of my field of vision.

The Times reporter observes that yard signs are “an outdated form of political advertising” that seems “quaint, almost historical.” Left unsaid is the implication that only rubes would use such archaic means of expression in the digital age.

Hiltner interviewed the owner of the first Hillary sign he encountered, in Thorntown, Indiana, and that individual recommended a visit to a nearby fall festival (emphasis in original):

But by the time I reached the crowds who were gathered there, just a few blocks to the east, a different kind of music had once again caught my attention.

It was the continuing chorus of America’s roadways, as sung by the yard signs of Thorntown: TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP.

So poll-leading Hillary has no crowds, no sales, and no signs. Her inept running mate may be one dizzy spell away from the Oval Office, and she has an opponent generating historic levels of enthusiasm. Despite what her media supporters would have us believe, it just doesn’t add up.